Globalization

In the effort to procrastinate the mountain of homework that is slowly burying me, I have decided to write another blog entry.

Last Sunday, I had a very interesting morning. My friend Natalie and I went to the only Walmart in Buenos Aires, and then we went to Burger King. I had a strange sense of deja vu while eating my Double Whopper and fries. It felt like I was still in the United States. Then I came back to my apartment and my host mother Ines told me that she had finally watched the TV show I had been telling her all about; NCIS. And in addition to Gilmore Girls, which she also likes, she thought I had a very good taste in TV shows. And I still felt like I was in the United States.

Of the things "Made in America" that have made it down to Buenos Aires, I can count: Wonka Candy Company (and all its delicious creations including Nerds), McDonalds, Burger King, Walmart, Jeep, Gilmore Girls, Law and Order, NCIS, Criminal Minds, iPods, Staples (which my host brother runs in Latin America, !?!?!, just learned that), every kind of American music imaginable (let's get real, I was in the club last night and they played entirely English 70s - 90s music for like an hour and a half with no Spanish songs in between!), Skittles, Myspace, Facebook, Starbucks, Walmart, Singerland drums (although I imagine most musical instruments are sold internationally), blackberry phones, American football (one of my host brothers watches the Giants), Northface, Columbia Sportswear, and tennis racket companies.

It's enough to make this American feel like she's never left home at times! Of course all these things are definitely on the expensive side in pesos. Some people I've met will have pretty much heard of everything in the last paragraphy I mentioned. And then of course there are the families of homeless people I pass everyday on the streets, the man that walked past me yesterday (when it was like 30 degrees out), in nothing but tattered rags with no shoes. Buenos Aires is a place of striking opposities. The rich live right beside the poor. And that's just this city. I"m told out in the country it's like going back in time: that it's a whole other world.